January 2017
The Dry
is by Jane Harper. I just can't understand how someone like him could do
something like that. Amid the worst drought to ravage Australia in a century,
it hasn't rained in small country town Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the
community become unbearable when three members of the Hadler family are
brutally murdered. Everyone thinks Luke Hadler, who committed suicide after
slaughtering his wife and six-year-old son, is guilty. Policeman Aaron Falk
returns to the town of his youth for the funeral of his childhood best friend,
and is unwillingly drawn into the investigation. As questions mount and
suspicion spreads through the town, Falk is forced to confront the community
that rejected him twenty years earlier. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a
secret, one which Luke's death threatens to unearth. And as Falk probes deeper
into the killings, secrets from his past and why he left home bubble to the
surface as he questions the truth of his friend's crime.
The
plague raging through London in 1665 has emptied the city. The only people left
are those too poor to flee, or those who selflessly struggle to control the
contagion and safeguard the capital's future. Amongst them, though, are those
prepared to risk their health for money - those who sell dubious 'cures' and
hawk food at wildly inflated prices. Also amongst them are those who hold in
their hands the future of the city's most iconic building - St Paul's
Cathedral. The handsome edifice is crumbling from decades of neglect and
indecision, giving the current custodians a stark choice - repair or demolish.
Both sides have fanatical adherents who have been fighting each other since the
Civil Wars. Large sums of money have disappeared, major players have
mysteriously vanished, and then a unidentified skeleton is discovered in
another man's grave. A reluctant Chaloner returns to London to investigate,
only to discover that someone is determined to thwart him by any means - by
bullet, poison or bludgeon - and he fears he has very little time to identify
the culprits before he becomes yet another victim in the battle for the
Cathedral's future. The Executioner of St Paul’s is
by Susanna Gregory.
February 2017
Echoes
in Death is by J D Robb. New
York at night. A young woman stumbles out on to a busy street – right in front
of Lieutenant Eve Dallas and husband Roarke. Her name is Daphne Strazza, and
she has been brutally assaulted. Confused and traumatised, she manages to tell
them one thing. Her attacker wore a devil’s mask. As Eve investigates this
shocking case, she soon discovers a disturbing pattern. Someone is preying on
wealthy couples, subjecting them to a cruel and terrifying ordeal. Worse still,
the attacks are escalating in violence and depraved theatricality. Eve and her
team are now in a race against time to find the man behind the mask – before he
strikes again. But for Eve, this case in particular has unsettling echoes of
her own troubled past . . .
A
Darkness Absolute - City of the Lost is by Kelley Armstrong. When experienced homicide detective Casey
Duncan first moved to the secret town of Rockton, she expected a safe haven for
people like her, people running from their past misdeeds and past lives. She
knew living in Rockton meant living off-the-grid completely: no cell phones, no
Internet, no mail, very little electricity, and no way of getting in or out
without the town council's approval. What she didn't expect is that Rockton
comes with its own set of secrets and dangers. Now, in A Darkness Absolute,
Casey and her fellow Rockton sheriff's deputy Will chase a cabin-fevered
resident into the woods, where they are stranded in a blizzard. Taking shelter
in a cave, they discover a former resident who's been held captive for over a
year. When the bodies of two other women turn up, Casey and her colleagues must
find out if it's an outsider behind the killings or if the answer is more
complicated than that...before another victim goes missing.
In
the dream, Belle was always the same age as when she died...Fourteen years ago,
the final words Kennedy ever spoke to his sister were in anger. That day was
September 11th 2001, and Belle died when her plane hit the North Tower of the
World Trade Center. Since then, Kennedy has dedicated his life to airline
security. He knows more about planes than the airport authority, a fact which
doesn't go unnoticed by the CIA. After kidnapping him, Kennedy is inducted by
the Agency into a programme called Red Carpet. Now Kennedy is a civilian asset,
an ordinary man working with extraordinary people to stop the world collapsing
around him, just as it did for his sister so many years before. The Asset is by Shane Kuhn.
Cambridge
Black is by Alison Bruce. A cold case waits to be solved ...and a
killer waits in the wings. Amy was seven years old when her father was arrested
for murder. His subsequent trial and conviction scarred her childhood and cast
a shadow over her life until, twenty-two years later, new evidence suggests he
was innocent and Amy sets out to clear his name. But Amy is not the only person
troubled by the past. DC Gary Goodhew is haunted by the day his grandfather was
murdered and is still searching for answers, determined to uncover the truth
about his grandfather's death and find his killer. But, right now, someone is
about to die. Someone who has secrets and who once kept quiet but is now living
on borrowed time. Someone who will be murdered because disturbing the past has
woken a killer.
Death
of a Ghost is by M C Beaton. There
are many ruined castles in Scotland. One such lies outside the village of Drim.
Hamish begins to hear reports that this castle is haunted and lights have been
seen there at night, but he assumes it's some children or maybe the local lads
going there to smoke pot, or, worse, inject themselves with drugs. Hamish says
to his policeman, Charlie 'Clumsy' Carson, that they will both spend a night
there. The keening wind explains the ghostly noises, but when Charlie falls
through the floor, Hamish finds the body of a dead man propped up in a corner
of the cellar. After Charlie is airlifted to the hospital, Chief Detective
Inspector Blair arrives to investigate the body, but there is none to be found.
Dismissed as a drunk making up stories, Hamish has to find and identify the
body and its killer before the "ghost" can strike again.
Inspector
Carlyle has a new partner in crime ...but for how long? When a fortune in uncut
diamonds are nicked by a group of soldiers, Carlyle teams up with Captain
Daniel Hunter of the Military Police to hunt them down. But Hunter has come up
against this crew before and they are not going to let him stand in their way a
second time. The investigation is turned upside down when Hunter's family are
kidnapped by the gang. The inspector has to look on helplessly while the
military policeman goes off on a personal mission of revenge. As events spiral
horribly out of control, Carlyle faces a terrible choice: does he let Hunter
take matters into his own hands or should he try and bring his new partner to
justice? All Kinds of Dead is by
James Craig.
March 2017
Summary
Justice is by John Fairfax. The last time Tess de Vere saw William
Benson she was a law student on work experience. He was a twenty-one year old,
led from the dock of the Old Bailey to begin a life sentence for murder. He'd
said he was innocent. She'd believed him. Sixteen years later Tess overhears a
couple of hacks mocking a newcomer to the London Bar, a no-hoper with a murder
conviction, running his own show from an old fishmonger's in Spitalfields. That
night she walks back into Benson's life. The price of his rehabilitation - and
access to the Bar - is an admission of guilt to the killing of Paul Harbeton,
whose family have vowed revenge. He's an outcast. The government wants to shut
him down and no solicitor will instruct him. But he's subsidised by a mystery
benefactor and a desperate woman has turned to him for help: Sarah
Collingstone, mother of a child with special needs, accused of slaying her
wealthy lover. It's a hopeless case and the murder trial, Benson's first, starts
in four days. The evidence is overwhelming but like Benson long ago, she swears
she's innocent. Tess joins the defence team, determined to help Benson survive.
But as Benson follows the twists and turns in the courtroom, Tess embarks upon
a secret investigation of her own, determined to uncover the truth behind the
death of Paul Harbeton on a lonely night in Soho. True to life, fast-paced and
absolutely compelling, Summary Justice introduces a new series of courtroom
dramas featuring two maverick lawyers driven to fight injustice at any cost.
Still
Dark is by Alex Gray. New Year's Eve should be a time for
celebrating. A chance to spend time with loved ones and look forward to the
year ahead. For DSI William Lorimer, however, this New Year's Eve will be one
that he will never forget. Called to a house after gunshots are reported, the
carnage he finds there will have a powerful impact on his life - leaving him
questioning his future with Police Scotland. Meanwhile, the man who eluded
police capture during Lorimer's last investigation - the Quiet Release case
involving the euthanasia of vulnerable patients - is back, and this time he's
aligned with a powerful gangster from Glasgow's underworld. As Lorimer
struggles to return to duty and stop this mystery killer once and for all, he
discovers that there are forces high up within Police Scotland that are
protecting the gangster that holds the key to finding the man they are looking
for. Can Lorimer and his team get a killer off the streets for good before more
innocent people die?
The
Method is by Shannon Kirk. They
thought she was the victim, but they're the ones in
TV
journalist Melanie Black wakes up one morning next to a man she doesn't
recognise. It's not the first time - but he ignores her even though she's in
his bed. Yet when his wife walks in with a cup of tea he greets her with a
smile and to her horror, Melanie comes to realise that no one can see or her
hear her - because she is dead. But has she woken up next to her murderer? And
where is her body? Why is she an invisible and uninvited guest in a house she
can't leave; is she tied to this man forever? Is Melanie being punished in some
way, or being given a chance to make amends? As she begins to piece together
the last days of her life and circumstances leading up to her own death it
becomes clear she has to make a choice: bring her killer to justice, or wreak
her own punishment out to the man who murdered her. Where She Went is by B E
Jones.
Dark
Asylum is by E S Thomson. 1851,
Angel Meadow Asylum. Dr Rutherford, principal physician to the insane, is found
dead, his head bashed in, his ears cut off, his lips and eyes stitched closed.
The police direct their attention towards Angel Meadow’s inmates, but to Jem
Flockhart and Will Quartermain the crime is an act of calculated retribution,
rather than of madness. To discover the truth Jem and Will must pursue the
story through the darkest corners of the city – from the depths of a notorious
rookery, to the sordid rooms of London’s brothels, the gallows, the graveyard,
the convict fleet and then back to the asylum. In a world where guilt and
innocence, crime and atonement, madness and reason, are bounded by hypocrisy,
ambition and betrayal, Jem and Will soon find themselves caught up in a web of
dark secrets and hidden identities.
From
his office on the Street of the Assassins, Nathan Sutherland, English Honorary
Consul to Venice, assists unfortunate tourists as best he can. A steady but
unexciting life that dramatically changes when he is offered a large sum of
money to look after a small package containing a prayer book illustrated by the
Venetian master Giovanni Bellini. Unknown to Nathan, from a palazzo on the
Grand Canal twin brothers Domenico and Arcangelo Moro, motivated by nothing
more than mutual hatred, have been playing out a complex game of art theft for
twenty years. And now Nathan finds himself unwittingly drawn into their deadly
business ... The Venetian Game is by
Philip Gwynne Jones.
April 2017
What
if all your secrets were put online? Sam Morpeth is growing up way too fast,
left to fend for a younger sister with learning difficulties when their mother
goes to prison and watching her dreams of university evaporate. But Sam learns
what it is to be truly powerless when a stranger begins to blackmail her
online, drawing her into a trap she may not escape alive. Who would you turn
to? Meanwhile, reporter Jack Parlabane has finally got his career back on
track, but his success has left him indebted to a volatile source on the wrong
side of the law. Now that debt is being called in, and it could cost him
everything. What would you be capable of? Thrown together by a common enemy,
Sam and Jack are about to discover they have more in common than they realise -
and might be each other's only hope.
Want you Gone by Christopher Brookmyre.
A
mysterious keepsake, a murdered bride, a legacy of secrets...One balmy June
evening in 1881, Phoebe Stanbury stands before the guests at her engagement
party: this is her moment, when she will join the renowned Raycraft family and
ascend to polite society. As she takes her fiance's hand, a stranger
brandishing a knife steps forward and ends the poor girl's life. Amid the
tumult, he turns to her aristocratic groom and mouths: 'I promised I would save
you.' The following morning, just a few miles away, timid young legal clerk
William Lamb meets a reclusive client, whom he was never meant to meet. He
finds the old man terrified and in desperate need of aid: William must keep
safe a small casket of yellowing papers, and deliver an enigmatic message: The
Finder knows. The Fourteenth Letter is by Claire Evans.
Time
to Win is by Harry Brett. When
local crime boss Richard Goodwin is pulled from the river by his office it
looks like suicide. But as his widow Tatiana feared, Rich collected enemies
like poker chips, and half of Great Yarmouth's criminal fraternity would have
had reason to kill him. Realising how little she knows about the man she
married, Tatty seeks to uncover the truth about Rich's death and take over the
reins of the family business, overseeing a waterfront casino deal Rich hoped
would put Yarmouth on the map. Out of the shadows at last, it is Tatty's time
now, and she isn't going to let Rich's brother, or anyone else, stand in her
way. But an American has been in town asking the right people the wrong
questions, more bodies turn up, along with a brutal new gang. The stakes have
never been higher. With her family to protect, and a business to run, Tatty
soon learns that power comes with a price.
Murder
on the Pilgrim’s Way is by Julie Wassmer. Pearl receives a surprise
present from her mother, Dolly - an early summer break at a riverside manor
house that has been recently transformed into an exclusive hotel - the newly
named Villa Pellegrini. Pellegrini - the Italian word for pilgrims - reflects
the fact that the building lies on the old Pilgrims Way into Canterbury, and
Pearl is looking forward to the break, not least because DCI Mike McGuire has
been neglecting her due to his work. But when she discovers that she's actually
booked in for a cookery course from the Italian celebrity chef, Nico Caruso,
she begins to think again ...Pearl doesn't welcome instruction on cookery at
the best of times, and certainly not from an arrogant chef like Caruso. She
goes along, intent on challenging Caruso's egotism - and a long tradition of
men dominating gastronomy - but soon finds herself distracted, not only by her
enchanting surroundings but by the disparate selection of guests. She even
begins to enjoy Caruso's attentions - and his cookery - until one of the guests
goes missing and it becomes clear that murder is on the menu.
2004
The court case had been harrowing. The fifteen jurors sat in silence while the
Father
Max Tudor’s former life as an MI5 agent has caught up with him, threatening his
newfound happiness with Awena and baby son Owen. Realizing there is no escape
from his past, Max, with his bishop’s tacit permission, has offered his
services on an as-needed basis. Max
receives the call for help when the body of glamorous film star Margot Browne
washes ashore. George tells Max his former colleague Patrice Logan, now heavily
pregnant, has asked Five for help particularly, Max’s help. It s a perfect closed circle murder since
victim Margot must have been killed by one of the group of actors, stylists,
scriptwriters, and second-tier royalty aboard. Patrice suspects the yacht’s
owner, a playboy film director she’s been keeping tabs on for smuggling, but
Max isn’t so sure. Max and DCI Cotton interview the suspects as they loll about
one of the luxury hotels dotting the waterfront. Tipped by the playboy
director, Max uncovers the truth about the star’s life and death. But would
Margot kill or be killed to keep her lurid past in the past? Max’s investigation uncovers a host of
motives but only one killer: it seems Margot is not the only person on board
with a secret they’d kill to keep. Devils
Breath is by G M Malliet.
The
Killing Collection is by T F Muir, How well do you know the man you
love? A woman's body is washed up on the rocks by the castle ruins in St
Andrews with evidence of strangulation, and no ID. Two weeks into the case, and
DCI Andy Gilchrist is no closer to identifying her. A call from another woman
claiming to be the dead woman's friend could be his first break, but when
Gilchrist turns up to interview her, she is missing. Three days later, her
throttled corpse is found and the investigation intensifies. A local handyman's
name repeatedly crops up in door-to-door interviews, a smooth character with
the reputation of being a ladies' man, who seems to have no history beyond
three years, the length of time he's been living in the East Neuk. But before
Gilchrist can bring him in for questioning, he vanishes. As Gilchrist hunts for
the missing suspect, he follows a trail of voyeurism and blackmail that
stretches across the region ...and beyond.
Russian
Roulette is by Sara Sheridan. Brighton 1956 When Mirabelle's on-off
boyfriend, Superintendent Alan McGregor, is taken off a gruesome murder case
because the key suspect is an old school friend, Mirabelle steps in to unravel
the tangle of poisoned gin, call girls and high stakes gambling that surrounds
the death. It isn't long before McGregor's integrity is called into question
and Mirabelle finds herself doubting him. So when a wartime hero's body turns
up on the Sussex Downs, she is glad that McGregor is caught up in a mystery of
his own as Brighton's establishment closes ranks. Mirabelle is in a dangerous
situation though and she doesn't have McGregor watching her back on this one.
And when the dead man on the Downs turns out to have been a member of a deadly
thrillseekers club, related to the earlier murder, Mirabelle is determined to
uncover the truth and free the innocent people who are bearing the brunt of the
cover up. As her relationship with McGregor reaches breaking point, she has to
draw on all her wartime experience to stand up for what she believes in - even
if it means their relationship may not survive.
May 2017
DI
Nicola Tanner needs Tom Thorne s help. Her partner, Susan, has been brutally
murdered and Tanner is convinced that it was a case of mistaken identity that
she was the real target. The murderer s motive might have something to do with
Tanner s recent work on a string of cold-case honor killings she believes to be
related. Tanner is now on compassionate leave but insists on pursuing the case
off the books and knows Thorne is just the man to jump into the fire with her.
He agrees but quickly finds that working in such controversial territory is
dangerous in more ways than one. And when a young couple goes missing, they
have a chance to investigate a case that is anything but cold. Love
Like Blood is by Mark Billingham.
Since
We Fell is by Dennis Lehane. Rachel’s
husband Brian adores her. When she hit rock-bottom, he was there with her every
step of the way as she slowly regains her confidence, and her sanity. But his
mysterious behaviour forces her to probe for the truth about her beloved
husband. How can she ever feel certain that she knew him? And was she ever
right to trust him?
In
many ways, Pearl Tao was a typical American child. She spent summer days at the
pool, played softball and lingered at suburban barbecues in her home city of
Washington, DC. Yet she is also an academic prodigy, with a university place
sponsored by a secretive advanced technology corporation. Only now, aged
nineteen, has she begun to understand the terrifying truth of what her role is
to be. What her parents intend her to become. Pearl's only hope of escape lies
with two British spies: one, Trish Patterson, sidelined in disgrace; the other,
former journalist Philip Mangan, gone rogue and following a trail of
corruption. Helping Pearl might be the most important and dangerous thing
either will ever do. The
Spy’s Daughter is by Adam Brooks.
Bad
Blood is by Brian McGilloway A young man is found in a riverside park,
his head bashed in with a rock. The only clue to his identity is an admission
stamp for the local gay club. DS Lucy Black is called in to investigate. As
Lucy delves into the community, tensions begin to rise as the man's death draws
the attention of the local Gay Rights group to a hate-speech Pastor who, days
earlier, had advocated the stoning of gay people and who refuses to retract his
statement. Things become further complicated with the emergence of a far right
group targeting immigrants in a local working class estate. As their attacks
escalate, Lucy and her boss, Tom Fleming, must also deal with the building
power struggle between an old paramilitary commander and his deputy that
threatens to further enflame an already volatile situation.
The
City of Lies is by Michael
Russell. Dublin 1940. An IRA attempt to capture the British diplomatic bag on
its way from Ireland to England leaves two Guards dead on the streets of
Dublin. Two days later a pitched battle between warring gangs erupts at one of
Ireland's biggest race meetings. On Ireland's east coast the cremated bodies of
a wealthy family of five are found in their shuttered, burned-out villa.
Connections between these events become clear to Detective Inspector Stefan
Gillespie when he is despatched from Special Branch to investigate the seaside
deaths, but he is soon treading on the toes of Ireland's burgeoning
Intelligence industry - Irish, British and German, all playing against each
other, all watching each other, and all plagued by rogue operators they can't
quite control, as the certainty grows that Hitler is about to invade England.
Meanwhile, in Berlin, a young Irish woman has been arrested for the murder of
the German officer who was her lover. She faces a brutal execution by
guillotine. The Irish ambassador can do nothing to help her, even though he is
convinced the police know she is innocent. But when Stefan Gillespie is sent to
Berlin, carrying new code books for the beleaguered embassy, there is an abrupt
change of tune at police headquarters in the Alexanderplatz. The police now
believe someone else in Berlin's tiny Irish community murdered the German
officer, and they want Stefan to help them find the killer. But he soon
discovers he is really working with the Gestapo, and they are not looking for a
murderer at all ...The journey home will turn into a dangerous pursuit, where
no one can be trusted and the information he carries puts his life at risk.
Back in Ireland Stefan walks into another web of deceit, where truth is neither
welcome nor convenient. The strangely connected events he was investigating
before he went to Germany, now coloured by what he discovered there, have
become 'unconnected'. No one wants them to be connected again, even if it means
an innocent man hangs ...
June 2017
"From
the first time I saw them together I knew it felt wrong. I didn't like the way
he touched her or the self-conscious way he played with Molly and Luke. Joanne
saw none of it of course. So I did it to prove to her that she was wrong. I did
it for us." Cherry's instincts tell her that best friend Joanne's new
boyfriend is bad news. Cherry fears for Joanne. Fears for Joanne's children.
But Joanne won't listen because she's in love. So Cherry watches, and waits ...and
then she makes a choice. But Cherry has a past, and secrets too. And is she
really as good a friend to Joanne as she claims? I Did it For Us is by Alison Bruce.
The
Frangipani Tree Mystery is by Ovidia Yu and is set in 1936 in the Crown
Colony of Singapore where the British abdication crisis and rising Japanese
threat seem far away. When the nanny looking after the Acting Governor's
daughter dies suddenly, Mission-School-educated local girl SuLin - an aspiring
journalist trying to escape an arranged marriage - takes her place. But then
another murder at the residence occurs and it takes all SuLin's traditional
skills and intelligence to help British-born Chief Inspector Thomas LeFroy
solve the murders - and escape with her own life.
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